Language learners don't know what immersion means

language Learners don't understand what immersion means and we need to stop talking about it as though we do but it took me to go to Sweden and talk to someone in Japan for me to realize this my name's Lamont I've been learning Swedish for a long time I've learn some other languages on and off during that time and I make these videos to tell you what I learn along the way so if that sounds good hit the Subscribe button and let's talk Shana chos what is immersion in a language well a lot of people would say it's living in a place where that language is spoken but others particularly regulars to this hobby probably just thought wo wo wo wo that's not necessarily immersion sure maybe not for me and you but for a lot of people that is the correct answer living in a place where the language is spoken all the time so that you have to hear it and particularly use it immersion now are they wrong or are we wrong or is the term unclear I believe it's the last one just saying immers is ambiguous at best this is a big problem because when I asked you guys to give me one word that describes how you learn a language do you want to guess what the most popular answer was tears a couple of people said tears but the most common answer was immersion so it is a problem that we don't even agree on what it means I mean as far as I know the bicycle Community is not in a disagreement about what wheel means well I mean maybe they are but they shouldn't be they probably have that pretty sorted defining the word immersion is important because ambiguous terms lead to ambiguous definitions and unclear instructions on how to learn a language in brief the language learning community should all mean the same thing when we use terms that are that prevalent in the language learning space the first thing is immersion so I'm going to try to help using a text message that I got from my brother while I was in Sweden I got this message from my brother who was in in Japan now I don't want to make it sound like we're always in different parts of the world because we both have like private jets or anything we're not normally overseas it was weird that we both were at the same time but his text said I've been thinking about this immersion that you talk about what level would a decently natural language learner need to already be at before the immersion worked and when I first read that I was like what because simplified to me what that says is how good do you need to be at the language before you can then learn the language it's like how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck would bro lay off the saki so confused I kept reading and with the context of the rest of the message I was like oh right you mean how much of the language would you already need to know before being in the country would be an effective way to keep learning the language which is a much more sensible question than the one I thought he was asking but not within the the scope of a 12-minute video but it struck me then and there that the nonh hardcore language learning community the 99% of language interested people out there like my brother are using the term immersion very differently to the way that we language learning enthusiasts are using it my point being that if my own brother is misunderstanding what I mean by immersion then at least half of what any casual language learner reads or he is out there is probably being misconstrued like imagine the bicycle equivalent it would be pretty difficult to teach someone about cycling if every time you said wheel they heard you say handlebars in my opinion we should not say immersion so what should we say well I propose two different terms one lifestyle language immersion and two cognitive language emmersion both lifestyle and cognitive language emersion are super important if you want to learn a language to fluency and something that I've found helpful to boost both of those is today's sponsor surf shark VPN there is nothing like 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language is spoken and attempting to do so using that language and for the record his message went on to describe how he tried to use Japanese but it didn't work because his level wasn't sufficient which is why he was asking me that so lifestyle Li is not talking about things like let's say a British person going on a gap year to Denmark and just speaking English the whole time because they can yes they may be getting exposure to the Danish lifestyle but since they're making no attempt to learn or speak Danish it's not language emotion hence the need for the word language in the term and you might be wondering if lifestyle Li can be done outside of a country or region where that language is the default well yes with an asterisk because what separates lifestyle lii from cognitive lii is that it must by necessity involve some language interaction between you and at least some other people who speak the language fluently so there are certain environments where a lowkey lifestyle language emotion is possible despite not being where you generally expect to find that language I'm thinking of things like the all Swedish Gatherings that I've been to in Sydney but speaking generally the strongest and longest form of Lifestyle Li will involve being in a country or region of a country where that language is standard and remember this is important because that's what 99% of casually language interested people would think that you meant by immersion even if it's not actually what we meant this is why I think there should be two different terms all right so what's cognitive language emotion cognitive Li is exposing your brain in any way that you can or you want to to the language in question so you could be in the desert in Kenya but if you're listening to an audio book in Icelandic then you're cognitively immersed in Icelandic have you ever heard someone say that this learning a language via immersion thing must be rubbish because what about all the people who live in the country for years and never learn the language I've heard that argument and it's flawed because it assumes that immersion is to do with your physical location it's very possible to live in a country but get minimal lifestyle Li to the language of that country whilst continuing to be cognitively immersed in a different language I think it's worth distinguishing between the two because yes there is some overlap between cognitive language emersion and lifestyle language emersion but by distinguishing between the two not only can we be better language Learners ourselves but we can also be better at helping others to learn languages there's a tendency particularly among the 99% the Casual language Learners to overrate the importance and the expected results of Lifestyle Li a lot of people think that just moving to a place where the language is spoken is this one anddone hack for perfect language acquisition and I've even spoken to people who know that they're going to be moving to a particular country and haven't started learning the language because they use the excuse that when they get there they'll just learn it perfect perfectly anyway and it's just not true but because most people don't have that option but would love to have I think it creates this kind of halo effect where they just think oh if I could just live in the country where the language is spoken then everything would be great and they can't imagine that any other learning method is effective cognitive language immersion is one such alternative and I got a very good idea of exactly how far that can get you when I recently went to Sweden for the very first time after about 15 to 1800 is hours of cognitive language immersion and without wanting to regail you with Tales of my Swedish prowess or whatever suffice it to say that it works very very well and to the lifestyle lii purists who say that you have to be there to actually learn the language properly I would say yes I sort of agree there are benefits to being there and certainly to living there that are practically impossible to obtain any other way but my experience in Sweden quashes the idea that you just can't learn a language sitting in your home on the other side of the world like learning a language from a different country huh never going to happen so naive that is not true and I am not the first person to show this cognitive language immersion Done Right can result in proficiency that many people in that country interpret as you at least having lived there for some time but if you're lucky even being a native speaker okay so if that's the case then why even bother making the distinction for two reasons one remember that to the 99% when you say immersion they hear living in the country which means that when you say the way to learn a language is immersion they will hear that as sorry unless you're going to go and live in the country you're not going to be able to learn the language that's not good because that's not true so instead let's tell them about cognitive language immersion and what that is and the other reason to make the distinction is that cognitive Li as great as it is is still not lifestyle lii cognitive is much better in some ways but they're still pretty different now in the perfect language learning world we would all do both all the time I would move to Sweden and I would keep getting cognitive Li and lifestyle Li but as many people do I have things that prevent that I have kids who go to school I have a wife with a career Etc so the big advantage of cognitive lii is accessibility for most people in most studied languages it's ready for you to jump into today my brother for example would be able to cognitively immerse in Japanese to get good enough at Japanese so that the next time he went there he might be able to get some lifestyle lii but I said that in order to get really good at the language I do think you need both but it might not be for the the reason that you think see lifestyle language immersion does this thing that is one of the weirdest and most interesting language learning discoveries I've ever made but it's very difficult to put words around so I've been working on a video for a very long time make sure you check it out because I think it will resonate and help you put a name to something that you've probably felt before if the video is finished I'll put it here if it's not finished then check out this video anyway it's probably really good make make sure you're subscribed and that you've hit the Bell so that you don't miss any videos when they come out now that I've been to Sweden my videos are going to be packed with goodness I learned a lot while I was over there but I'm still going to say Lo [Music]